Classic Rock News

David Coverdale, who found fame with Whitesnake and Deep Purple, has announced his retirement from music.

In a video posted to Whitesnake’s YouTube account, the 74-year-old rocker reveals that “after 50 years-plus of an incredible journey” he’s decided to call it quits.

“The last few years has been very evident to me that it’s time really for me to hang up my rock ‘n’ roll platform shoes and my skintight jeans,” he says in the video. “It’s time for me to call it a day.”

“I love you dearly. I thank everyone who’s assisted and supported me on this incredible journey — all the musicians, the crew, the fans, the family,” he adds. “It’s amazing, but it really is time for me to just enjoy my retirement.” He adds, “And I hope you can appreciate that. Once again, I love you with all my heart. Fare thee well.”

The clip ends with a montage of photos and video from Coverdale’s career with Whitesnake, set to the band’s song “Fare Thee Well,” which appeared on their 2011 album, Forevermore, which was reissued in September. 

Coverdale had his biggest success in the ’80s, thanks to the Whitesnake songs “Here I Go Again” and “Is This Love.” They released their last album, Flesh & Blood, in 2019.

Coverdale was also the frontman for Deep Purple from 1973 to 1976, and released the album Coverdale-Page in 1993 with Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page. He also had a solo career, releasing his final solo album, Into The Light, in 2000.

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After releasing his memoir in 2024, Alex Van Halen is getting ready to release another book, which will surely excite Van Halen fans.

The rocker revealed on Instagram that he has been working with Genesis Publications on an official Van Halen anthology, which he describes as “a visual and written journey told through my perspective.”

He adds that the book, which he personally curated, is a “celebration of the music, the moments, and the legacy we built together.”

The book’s description notes that it will include iconic Van Halen photography, as well as rare and never-before-seen images from Alex’s private archives, covering the years 1978 to 1984. It will also include tour memorabilia, press materials, correspondence and more.

The book will be released as a signed, limited-edition box set, with those interested urged to sign up for updates.

Alex released his memoir, Brothers, in October 2024, which he described as a love letter to his late brother, guitar great Eddie Van Halen. The audio book included a previously unreleased song, “Unfinished,” which was described as the last piece of music Alex wrote with Eddie.

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Sounds like we may be getting some new music from Peter Frampton soon.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s music update came courtesy of Sheryl Crow, who posted a photo of herself with Frampton in the studio on Instagram.

“Got to work with one of my heroes today,” she wrote in the caption. “Y’all better get ready… @mrpeterframpton played me a couple of new songs that will be out early next year… Mind Blown.”

And Frampton was appreciative of the compliment.

“Thank you Sheryl !! Great day having you sing with me on one of my new songs,” he commented on the post. “You sound so good, …as always.”

This isn’t the first time Crow and Frampton have worked together. Frampton came out to perform with Crow during her 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, something Frampton believes helped pave the way for his induction in 2024.

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The Rolling Stones’ iconic tune “Paint It Black” is the subject of a new lawsuit filed against Behr Paint.

ABCKO Music & Records, owner of The Stones’ early master recordings, is suing the paint company for copyright infringement for using the 1966 chart-topper in an advertisement for its paint products that appeared on social media.

The suit notes that Behr didn’t pay ABCKO to use the song, while most third parties “pay significant fees,” which they say range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to license such ABKCO recordings for ads.

According to the suit, the “commercial use of the ABKCO Recording has forced a business association upon ABKCO that has harmed its ability to license the ABKCO Recording to Behr’s competitors that would pay for the use” of the song.

ABKCO is claiming it “suffered significant damages” thanks to the unauthorized use of “Paint it Black,” adding Behr’s “acts of infringement have been willful, in reckless disregard of and with indifference to” ABKCO’s rights.

ABKCO is seeking actual damages, to be proven at trial, recovery of any profits Behr made off the use of the song, plus statutory damages and lawyers’ fees.

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The Who‘s Pete Townshend has revealed that he’s got lots of unfinished music in his vaults, but he’s not so sure whether fans will ever get to hear it.

Townshend appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Wednesday, where he talked about his unfinished works, revealing he has “350, 450 pieces of music.”

“Now, a lot of it is probably terrible,” he said. “I’ve managed to wade through about half of it,” adding, “I don’t know what to do with it.”

He said he’s “quite interested in AI” and he’d be open to using the AI platform Suno or some other platform on “old songs that didn’t quite work because I didn’t get them right [the] first time round.” He explained he’d like to see “what it can make of it. It might be some hits.”
 
During the episode, Townshend also sat in with The Late Show band, and discussed his Quadrophenia ballet, which opens in New York on Friday, and The Who farewell tour, which wrapped in North America in October.

He insisted the farewell is “genuine,” but joked, “We’re gonna end it after we’ve done as many shows as Elton John,” which got some laughs. “He did 330, we’ve done 22, so we just have another 308 to do. And then we’ll be gone for good.”

While Townshend said he doesn’t usually enjoy touring, he did this time around.

“I decided I was going to try to make Roger [Daltrey] happy, which isn’t easy,” he said, noting singing takes a lot out of Roger. “I thought, you know, I must forget about myself and just do this for him. It could be the last thing we ever do together. And it worked.”

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Ringo Starr is hitting the road again.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has announced a string of spring 2026 tour dates, launching May 28 in Temecula, California. The trek features several stops in the Golden State and will also hit Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, before wrapping June 14 in Los Angeles.

As usual, Ringo will be backed by his All Starr Band, made up of Toto’s Steve Lukather, Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.

A complete list of dates and ticket information can be found at RingoStarr.com.

In the meantime, Ringo is hard at work back in the studio with T. Bone Burnett, who produced his 2025 country album, Look Up, with plans to release a new album in 2026.

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Foo Fighters performed the live debut of their new single “Asking for a Friend” during their show in Monterrey, Mexico, on Wednesday.

“That’s the first time we’ve ever tried that one live,” frontman Dave Grohl told the cheering audience after the song ended.

The set also included a rare performance of The Colour and the Shape deep cut “Hey, Johnny Park!,” which the Foos hadn’t played live since 2021.

The studio version of “Asking for a Friend” premiered in October. It marks the second new original Foo Fighters song of 2025, following “Today’s Song,” which debuted in July. The most recent Foo Fighters album is 2023’s But Here We Are.

Foo Fighters will play Mexico City on Friday. They’ll launch a world stadium tour in 2026, first in Europe in June before coming to North America in August.

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Squeeze is getting ready to drop a new album, although the material in it isn’t new … to them.

The band will release Trixies, their first album in eight years, on March 6. The songs on it were the first tunes Squeeze’s Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook ever wrote together back when they were teens.

The songs are described as a “collection of stories set in a fictional night club, Trixies.” They were written by the duo back in 1974 when recording was beyond their skill set.

“We fully committed ourselves to songwriting but this was three or four years before we even got to make our first record,” Difford shares. “Long story short, these were songs that we just didn’t have enough musical experience to record properly.”

Now, following the discovery of the original cassette, the band has finally turned the songs into an album, and they’ve just released the first song, “Trixies Pt.1,” to digital outlets.

“The songs that we wrote then astound me. I’m proud of them now, and I’m particularly proud that it was young us that did that,” Tilbrook says, adding, “The act of revisiting the Trixies songs had me in tears, partly because they’re so good, but also because I’m aware of all the stuff that I’ve still yet to hear and write.”

Difford notes, “It really fills me with joy that at my age we can discover that we wrote such great songs when we were teenagers. I’m very proud of that.”

Trixies is available for preorder now.

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Ozzy Osbourne was hospitalized two weeks before his farewell performance at the Back to the Beginning concert on July 5, his family says.

“We had him in the hospital, and we were just terrified that people were going to find out,” Sharon Osbourne says in the newest episode of The Osbournes Podcast, the first since Ozzy’s death on July 22.

“We had all this security in the hospital, and the hospital was amazing, they really were,” Sharon adds.

Sharon also tells a story about someone coming to the hospital claiming to be the brother of a John Osbourne, which was Ozzy’s birth name. Concerned that the person was an imposter and was trying to finagle his way into seeing Ozzy, Sharon sent down security, only to find out there was another patient in the hospital whose name was also John Osbourne, and the visitor was there to see him.

Despite the hospitalization, Ozzy performed at the Back to the Beginning concert with his solo band and his original Black Sabbath bandmates. He’d already announced ahead of time that the show would mark his final live performance, a promise that he sadly fulfilled upon his passing just over two weeks later.

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Cheap Trick will release their 21st studio album, All Washed Up, on Friday, and bassist Tom Petersson says their approach to making records today is the same as it was when they first started out over 50 years ago.

“We just are making songs that we like, would like to hear ourselves,” he tells ABC Audio. “So it’s like we’re making it for ourselves and our friends, and then the rest, it’s like having a lottery ticket.”

Songs on the album range from fast rockers like “The Riff That Won’t Quit” to ballads like “The Best Thing,” but Petersson says they don’t go into the studio with a plan to have specific types of songs on an album.

“If one person doesn’t like it we won’t do it,” he says of the songs they record, noting they won’t include a ballad on a record just because someone tells them to.

“If somebody writes a ballad, then we go, ‘Hey, that is a good one. OK, let’s do that,’” he explains. “Now we just basically do it for our own enjoyment because that’s probably all anybody’s gonna get out of it is their own enjoyment.”

“We want to do something we’re not embarrassed to play for people,” he says, explaining that they wouldn’t want to record something they don’t like even if it could sell 10 million copies.

He adds, “We just want to do what we think sounds good.” 

All Washed Up is Cheap Trick’s first album since 2021’s In Another World. It will be released digitally, on CD and on black vinyl. There will also be an orange marble variant, limited to 1,000 copies, sold through the band’s website.

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